D.Castles <> wrote in message .

> Rowland Croucher wrote:

>

> > D.Castles <> wrote in message

> > .

<> > Well I’ve got no degrees so I guess I’m the dummy then.

Not necessarily. Consider some of the famous auto-didacts – they don’t have formal degrees but are quite brilliant…

Getting a degree means, to some extent, that you’ve succeeded in impressing an examiner 🙂

> I forgot to mention, I was thrown out of RMIT twice and tossed out of

Melb. Uni > once.

Getting tossed out of institutions has gotten into quite a habit 🙂 I can understand a little your frustration with bureaucracies etc. !

<>

> No problem here. We have a god and Jesus. I agree so far. Jesus obviously

> thought god was with him. He never said he was god or a manifistation of

god.

Not in those words. But when he accepts the ascription of ‘Lord and God’ from one of his followers without contradicting him, you can draw your own conclusions. I once counted about 80 occasions in the Gospels where Jesus did and said things only God could legitimately say or do (like forgiving people’s sins – sins against a third party!!!)

> > The Father

> > will send the Holy Spirit ‘in my name’ (v.26)… And so on.

>

> What actually is “the holy spirit”?

God in action.

> > The Father is

> > the Son is the Spirit: read the whole chapter carefully… The Trinity’s

> > there (all except for that word – which comes from the Latin

trinitas)…

> > I have read the chapter carefully but it does not suggest at all that

Jesus > > was talking about a “Trinity” in the sense that it is believed now.

Try reading on – to and including chapter 16.

BTW I am not necessarily endorsing the wording or emphases of the classical Christian creeds (now that’s gonna open the floodgates from some quarters :-)…

> > The councils of the church then had to figure out questions about which

> > person in the Godhead is original/supreme; who does what?; how do they

> > relate to one another? etc.

>

> This is fair enough but in doing so pushed the belief of a single god to

> breaking point. Jesus, as a Jew would have been horrified at this piece of

> politics.

Not sure about that: but certainly as a Hebrew, Jesus wasn’t into codifying doctrine. The Greek mind-set is good at that…

> > > Now if you want to argue why I say these things then go for your life

but > > > remember my responses are not based on past experience only informed

> > opinion.

> >

> > A question here Dave: your ‘informed’ opinion: who/what informed you? I

> > thought you were berating me for having ‘informed’ opinions rather than

> > ‘original’ ones?

>

> No, I was berating you for having no opinion of your own (in regards to

the > Spong issues)

And I pointed you to an article about Spong on my website which is full of opinions. Haven’t seen any feedback on that yet…

> If you have some of your own opinions about Spong then lets see them. (I

trust > they don’t simply take the party line)

There are 33,800 different Christian denominations in the world. Which ‘party-line’ are we referring to here?

> My term “informed opinion” simply means I have read material giving both

sides > of the argument and have formed an opinion whether it be right or wrong.

My > opinion is not based on a ready made doctrine like yours is. In other

words I am > not a prisoner of dogma…you are.

Am I? You don’t know me well enough yet Dave, my friend!

> > Can you give us an example of one your truly ‘original’ opinions? I’d

like > > to see that!

>

> I have never claimed to have ever had an original opinion or thought in my

life > but at least my opinions have been formed by acquainting myself with

issues in > an quasi-objective manner and I do not have them taught to me by some

ignorant, > superstitious, organisation like a church which is locked into opinions

formed > 1700 years ago.. (or 1500 years in the case of Islam)

>

> P.S. I am not impessed by the acquisition university dgrees and even less

> impressed by the quantity of people you have counselled. Some of the most

stupid > people I have ever met have PhD’s (I have worked with some of these ones)

and > “counselling” is a practice which has been shown by some studies to have a

> questionable level of effectiveness.

Yes, I’d go along with both of those opinions to some extent. (Dunno why intelligent people keep coming back for counseling, though. Some of them got thrown out of institutions and want to figure out why 🙂

> Why do you have so many degrees Rowland?

I enjoy dying by degrees… Formal study has encouraged me to be disciplined about my reading on this and that…

> And why does the thought of you as a counsellor make me feel so uneasy?

Good question. Would you like to talk about that :-)? >

> > > Dave

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